I truly believe that my process could be a lot easier if I tried. This next piece took about a dozen sketches and re draws and tears (haha) to make.
The biggest problem that I've had for a long time is tone/shading and clarity. Perhaps I'm an abstract artist at heart, but rarely is abstraction acceptable in illustration...especially if that abstraction was meant to be a hand or something or other important detail that needs clarification. To fix this issue, I began to determine tone in photoshop by scanning my drawing in (after sketching out the darks and lights in thumbnails @_@) and just going through with photoshop paint. After that, to help with color (which sometimes I'll get too many layers and forget that this is acrylic and NOT oil paints) I just plop in the color to determine where things are placed, and gain more clarification.
Then comes the re-draw yay! I figure out what I enjoyed most of about the sketch, then draw the final. The acrylic layer is then painted on for texture purposes (and for patience purposes as working with acrylics can be annoying sometimes, but I suppose thats what happens when working with a plastic paint, not nearly as flexible as oils or digital) as I like painted textures with a strong color and found the combo to be fairly interesting. Prints way better too! And quicker! Joy.
In the middle of making this, I realized in my sketch I didn't see the gutter problem with the dandelion and the first "stitch" sooooooo... had to fix it.
I did.
And here it is.
Perhaps I'll add the words on here later tonight, but this is the page spread! Another illustration complete for the dummy. I'll be making this one next!
